[cassull]

I want to say first that I am by no means an audiophile, but I would like to get into the world of high quality sound, albeit on a budget. I recently purchased a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M50. It's currently hooked up to a receiver, which has output going to a pair of passive speakers. Now most of the time I don't even use headphones, I usually just have music coming out through the speakers. I have the M50s hooked up to burn in (sound is being put through both the headphones and speakers) and have been trying to determine if the M50s are an improvement over my last pair of headphones, which was the Sony MDR-V6s. 
 
I'm not really sure if there is a difference, though I couldn't say anymore as I sold the V6s before I got the M50s. However, while I was doing this, I came across a post on 4chan that state the Beyerdynamic DT770 Pros are a much better price per performance. Obviously it's 4chan and one should take any information from that site with a very large grain of salt, but here's the post. What do the folks here think of it? Also, the post actually does have some swearing and I'm not sure if that's against the rules here, so I apologize in advance if it is. 
 
http://img844.imageshack.us/i/1294817099644.png/

 

[Riku540]

The DT 770 Pro's are excellent; except that they need a decent desktop amp.
 
Considering the M50's are many people's first purchase here, any of them do not have amps. If you add the price of the DT 770 plus an amp, it becomes much more expensive rather quickly.
 
For those who do have an amp, the DT 770 is a much better buy, and scales much better.

 

[shane55]

There are several versions of the DT770 with different Ohm ratings.
I had the older versions of the 'non-ported' 250 & 600 ohm variants. I love bright clean highs, and love my DT880/600's, but I found both of the DT770's to be far to severe in the highs for me.
I also found the bass LESS than the DT880 (which others have reported as well), but again these were NOT the ported version... which apparently gives the DT770 some serious bass slam.
 
The M50 has it's issues (slightly recessed mids, slightly slower than the DT770), but overall, I found them much more enjoyable and at least as comfortable and isolating.
 
BTW... I agree with what Riku540 said regarding amping. The DT770 really needs it, whereas the M50 does not.

 

[cassull]

Well, there is my receiver, but I guess I'm not really sure what the differences are between a receiver and an amplifier. Would a receiver suffice to power the DT770s? Though the receiver itself is actually pretty weak, I got it for free from a friend. I believe it only has 65W or 50W. While I am considering selling my M50s and giving the DT770s a shot, it might be that I'm just not cut out to enjoy high quality sound like the folks here, I just can't seem to be really wowed by headphones enough to invest too much money in them